these last eight years
by Tulyp
Summary: when you want something you expect it to be in your hands in five seconds or less. she's right here, wrapped around your finger, her skin at the edge of your fingertips. this should feel good, this should feel like the old kol, the one who expected the world. you wonder if something is wrong with you. you don't feel satisfied. don't want her, you want HER. emiliya. KOL/OC


**DISCLAIMER:** i (obviously) do not own the vampire diaries.

_aghhh, kol is adorable. emiliya is adorkable. hush, yes she is (on the inside). i'm considering adding more to this, then it'll become a chapter ff :) if so, then don't worry, it would be in normal past tense & third person format (maybe) . enjoy lovelies 3 & please, please review as it would really mean the world to me _( & my ego)_. _

* * *

your father tells you that you are the most handsome boy in all of town.

so you do what every child does when their parents tell them something.

you believe him.

* * *

father was the strongest fighter in his family. he was also most talented.

you perfected your own skill when you turned five, teasing bekah until her face turned red. in the process, nothing else was more exciting.

"mikael, you have to tell your son 'no' from time to time. he's becoming intolerable!"

he can't though, because you are his little prince. his youngest and what he thinks to be his last son, two titles that gave you rights since the day you were born. it doesn't help that he spends too much time away and not enough worrying over what his sons will become. the only son he worries over is niklaus, with good reason.

you don't take no for an answer, none of you do.

and you've got a memory that's (dangerously) as sharp as a tack.

you meet her when you're ten years old. your brothers have all ran off to the falls and you really don't feel like following, in fact, you rarely do. you could be play fighting, training to be the best with your wooden swords and sharp mind, but you don't really feel like doing that either.

it's almost pathetic that you have such a holier art thou attitude, especially because you're only ten. on top of that you're really not as great as you think you are.

that's what you get for basing your life of fake sword fights and a father's biased love.

you'll always remember the first time you heard the word 'no.'

you've heard it plenty of times before from your mum and your brothers and sister, but you always had father's protection.

this time the word comes from a ten year old girl who sits alone on the curb of her big flowery cottege, lining up a collection of shiny crystals and stones. they catch your eye right away and you trot over confidently, figuring that surely you'll soon be in possession of at least one of those stones.

you're boisterous even when you first approach people and it's no different with her.

you don't socialize much with other children. you think most of them don't dress well enough or are too dirty or just completely ridiculous and immature. you think you're above them, all of them, but adults can't stand you either. you're completely insufferable, so you spend most of your days out helping your father in the fields or assisting your mother with whatever errand she may need.

you come to a halt in front of her and intentionally block the sun so that she's in your shadow. you've got a smirk on your lips that some people wouldn't at all mind wiping off your face, even if you're just a child.

"let me have one of your crystals!"

you're not polite or even humble in asking. as you wait for her reaction you take the time to notice her dark brown hair and pale hazel eyes that almost seemed to entrance you. they have such an effect on you that you sidestep so that the sun filters onto her frame and your smug smile turns into a real smile.

your father can buy you any marble that you might ask for, but that's not the point and you know it. suddenly it's not about the marble but more about the girl. any marble your father would buy wouldn't matter because it would never have been in this girl's possession, this girl with the stubborn smile and eyes that you could simply fall in to.

as you grow older you do fall into them, more than once.

it's a dangerous game you play, and the only game you can't win at.

but that's then and this is now and she shakes her head. "no, they're mine."

in an instant she has accomplished a feat that no one else in your life has; she has rendered you speechless.

"i guess i should have been more clear. give me the crystal!"

again, "no."

she isn't impressed by you and that completely steams you up because how dare she?

"what?" you seem to want an explanation but you don't know how to ask for one. you've never had to before.

"i said no." she doesn't even seem phased by you, or even flustered at your brashness. she only seems… embarrassed for you, the way she sweeps her eyes to the ground. suddenly you're embarrassed and you're pissed that a nameless girl can make you feel so small, knocking you down from your self-constructed pedestal.

"what's your name? is it 'no' too?"

"that's an awful attempt at a joke, you know. my name is emiliya, emiliya draganova"

"can i call you milly?

"no."

"how about emma?"

"no."

you still call her all those nicknames and more to this day, and she still has those crystals, as if to remind you that you can't always get what you want.

she doesn't realize that the only thing that you truly want that you can never have is a girl names emiliya with those eyes that have killed you more than once.

* * *

you don't see her again that whole summer but you're ten years old and you don't have time to worry about some girl who had left you speechless. it's when you turn eleven and runnings through the market that you meet her again, and for the second time in your life you are left speechless because how had he never seen her before?

your oldest brother finn is much older than you and insists she join you for dinner because he knows how you can come off in a new setting. your level of volume is enough to turn most people off. add to the fact that you think the world is meant to serve you and only you and it's almost impossible for your oldest brother to see you making any friends.

he tries to coach you, to tell you just to be kind and not a self-righteous little brat, but right when you sit to eat you snatch a piece of bread out of niklaus' fingers and happily tromp back to your opposite side of the table.

"hey milly! do you remember me?"

she does and you smile and go to grab a bite from her plate but she gently grabs your outstretched wrist and pulls her plate from it. nothing she does is ever mean or boisterous or loud. she's like an extra terrestrial and you desperately wish to figure her out but she's enigmatic and you're impatient and all you can seem to do is be annoying around her.

"if we're going to be friends we better have some ground rules."

you agree to all of them but you're sitting there smiling at your plate thinking that rules are meant to be broken.

* * *

by the time you turn fourteen you've broken all of her rules on so many different levels but you learn to apologize for them and sincerely mean it which is shocking all on its' own. at one point your second eldest brother elijah gives emiliya a hearty handshake and thanks her for the slight change in you and you punch him and blush and you hate that feeling too because its' foreign and burns you up.

you still think you know everything.

you still give yourself way too much credit for absolutely everything.

but instead of everything about you being negative there are some positives in your personality and because they are new they shine quite brightly.

it has always been you against the world, trying to make everyone believe your cockiness. so when you realize how much you depend on her it startles you.

it disgusts you when you realize you love her.

she's everything you aren't and you shouldn't ever feel this way about someone because you're only used to feeling this way about yourself.

for the third time she makes you speechless and you feel awkward around her because you don't know what to say. she must know something is off because you two have been so close for four years now and you really get to know a person when you spend that much time with them.

like how you know that she is about to say something witty (in that endearing dry way of her) by the slightest curve of his lips.

or how she twirls her thumb (the right one always going a little bit faster than the left) when she's deep in thought.

or like how she has become more…brooding, if that is even the word. something has changed within her too, but you know its' not for the same reason as why you have changed and you're thankful for it.

you're stupidly in love with the only person who can really stand you and you don't think its' wise to ruin something that's so strangely wonderful, especially over something as hollow as young love.

so you dress up handsomely and visit your town's winter festival and find a girl who doesn't understand you at all and who you don't want to understand. you like her because she's daft and it's easy to love yourself more than you love her. you're cocky around her and unbearable and you feel like your old self again but it doesn't feel as good as it once did.

when she rejects you after your first week together with you it angers you beyond words, not because you like her in the slightest but because you hate not having control over things and not being able to get the last word in.

you find em easily because you know all of her secret hiding places and you're throwing things and cursing the fool for leaving you. "how dare she!? who does he think she is?!"

emiliya is quiet but so loud and you want to tell her that you're better than her and that could she please speak up, no shut the bloody hell up, just shut up and stop being what everyone wishes you would be.

"calm down."

she has that effect on you and you want to feel calm and sit next to her and laugh at inside jokes that seem so insignificant but mean the world to you. you wonder when she changed you and you wonder when it became okay for her to change you. you never let anyone else do it, so why her?

you love her but you know she'll never love you back because you're explosive and infuriating and probably unstable.

you're kol mikaelson, the only one in the world and that counts for something, right? she has stifled your cockiness for so long, but it feels wonderful as it bubbles and spills out.

"you can't tell me what to do."

and you storm out like its' her fault and you wonder why it feels like you just screwed up everything good in your life with just seven hollow words.

* * *

one minute you're a bomb and the next you're a child and it doesn't take long for you to feel horrible about what happened at the end of winter. you know you shouldn't take it out on her that you love her.

he's beautiful and right and you're ugly and wrong and its' the first time you admit it to yourself.

you write a note to her during spring and stick it under her door right away.

"milly, i'm sorry for breaking all the rules and taking things out on you that weren't your fault. now say you're sorry for being so quiet lately and send me a crystal and i'll find it in my heart to forgive you!"

you get a letter back from her and there is no crystal with it. you smile and everything feels right again, as you promise to never tell her how you feel about him.

but promises, like rules, are meant to be broken.

sometimes you feel like she knows that you must have this massive crush on her, how blind can a girl be? you try to hide it but then hse laughs at something you say or pokes her elbow into you playfully or asks you how it's possible for a seventeen year old to be such a brat. you get goosebumps when she accidentally brushes past you and it gets so bad that you try to find a spell to control goosebumps or blushes or anything.

there's no spell for unrequited love except memory loss and you refuse to lose the one person in life who puts up with you.

when you move on to true adult hood and both decide to stay a the falls there's a piece of you that wants to cry, but the piece of you that is ecstatic wins over that. you know you want to stay with your brothers and keep and eye on young henrik, and you'd love to help your father with his work.

you receive silly errands because all the good jobs are taking by finn, elijah, and niklaus.

mostly all of your dislike the way you act and especially your attitude, as they haven't been able to tame it. nobody but em has, in fact, but henrik was always there for you when you needed him most. but he never does more than listen, always listen and learn as much as he can.

one day he has the guts to ask you why you've got such an attitude.

no one has ever asked that, and you're speechless and it reminds you too much of em. "hey! i don't have an attitude problem." the lie sounds silly and you sigh. "okay, maybe a bit of one. but before there was you, there was me, and of course i was his greatest. no one ever pointed my traits until i met my best friend, em. by the time she did i was ten years old and it was kind of too late. there's nothing wrong with knowing you're great, though. and hey! if you know a bunch of stuff why not share it with the world?"

henrik laughs before asking, "so you know who you are and that it is no good for others and you still haven't changed? kol, we've pointed it out plenty of times you never did a think. why change for now?"

"i tried to change once. i tried to change for someone. but she only seemed to get more distant and i don't think she noticed. and because emiliya is…just emiliya. she's honest and quiet but she's patient and gentle. she's…i don't know. she's emiliya."

henrik nods. "that girl you're always talking with? she seems great."

there was an awkward silence before he puts a hand on your shoulder. "and that girl you tried to change for…she's obviously worth it. even though, i mean, unless you try to kiss in front of me or anything. never do that, ever. still…"

"…so i should tell her?"

"definitely."

suddenly you have a mission, unaware that it has the potential to destroy you.

* * *

you used to only put yourself on a pedestal but now milly has her own pedestal and she's glorified in your eyes.

but everything changes when you muster up the courage to tell her.

when you meet her in your regular clearing and she seems distracted and withdrawn. she seems like she wants to tell you something but you like being first in everything you do so you quickly let the words flow. how can something you've been hiding for five years come out so easily in thirty seconds?

"milly i…i have to tell you something."

she looks at you with those eyes, those damn eyes that could turn you to stone.

"i used to think i was the only person in the world who mattered. i met you and all of that changed and suddenly you're just as important and everything about you is…just…perfect. everything. and i…it's too hard to be your friend when all i can think about is how much i want to be with you…how much i want you…"

she looks at you and you do turn to stone because all you can see are her tears, dripping, dripping like icicles until she turns away and all you can see now is the ruffle of her skirts as she dashes away.

you are the only one who matters after all.

your eyes get damp with tears and you tear down em's pedestal and tell yourself that she isn't all that great, no, not at all.

you wonder when it became so easy to lie to yourself.


End file.
